Chapter 1
Chapter 1: The Woman Who Holds the Hollow
Morgane's PoV
People think ruling a city is about power. It isn't. It's about knowing which fires to let burn and which to put out before dawn.
I stood on the balcony of the Ash Tower with a cup of bitter tea going cold in my hands, and I counted the lights of my city the way other women count prayers. Lanterns over the Meat Quarter, where the wolves haggled over smoked boar. The red glow of the Velvet Row, where vampires drifted like smoke and nobody asked what they were buying. My witches' carts in the Market of Stars, glittering with charms that I had personally taxed.
Three races. One truce. And me, holding it all together with a blood oath burned into my left wrist.
I rubbed the mark. It always ached at night, a dull, patient burn, as if the oath were reminding me it was still there....It was.
"Matriarch." Odalys, my steward, stepped out onto the balcony with a scroll in her hand and tension in her shoulders. She'd served my mother before me. I could read her like a ledger. "The Silverfang envoys are demanding another tariff reduction."
"They can demand whatever they like. The answer is no."
"They say the northern packs are starving."
"They say that every winter." But I took the scroll anyway and broke the seal, because I'm not a woman who ignores things just because they're inconvenient. I read it twice. Then I stopped pretending I wasn't worried.
"Odalys. How many packs?"
"The Karst Pack, the Blackridge, and two smaller ones. Their wells have turned black. Their game is dying."
"A blight." I set the cup down on the stone. "That isn't a tariff problem. That's something else."
"What do you want me to tell the envoys?"
"That the Matriarch will consider it." I didn't turn around. "And that if I find out someone in the Hollow is poisoning northern wells to profit from grain prices, I will take their hands."
Odalys bowed and left. I stayed where I was, listening to my city breathe.
I should explain how I came to rule it, because everyone has a version of the story and most of them are wrong.
My mother was Matriarch before me, and she was a kind woman, which is the worst thing a ruler can be. She borrowed money from the wrong creditor to feed the Hollow through a famine, and when she couldn't pay, the creditor came to collect. He didn't want gold. He wanted a binding.
The creditor was Aurelian Vael. He is five hundred years old, polite as a knife, and he has never once raised his voice. He offered a trade. He would forgive the debt, and in return, the Matriarch of the Hollow would swear a blood oath to guard the city until her death or until the oath was broken.
My mother was dying of fever. She couldn't carry it. So at nineteen, I knelt in a circle of black salt, cut my own wrist, and took her place.
I've been paying ever since.
The oath makes me strong. I can feel every wall of this city like an extension of my skin. I can hear a lie in the marketplace from three streets away. The wards answer to my will, and I have used them to stop riots, wars, and one memorable assassination.
But the oath is also a leash, and Aurelian holds the other end.
"You look troubled, my dear."
I did not jump. I'd learned long ago not to jump when he appeared, because he enjoyed it. I turned slowly. He was lounging against the balcony door, pale and perfectly dressed, his dark eyes glittering with amusement.
"You're not invited."
"I'm always invited. The Hollow is my investment." He glided closer, soft as a rumor. "I hear the north is dying."
"You hear a great many things."
"It's my talent." He picked up my cold tea, sniffed it, and set it down with a faint grimace. "I wonder if you've considered calling the Midwinter Accord. A gathering of all three races under the Hollow's roof. A show of unity. It would be very good for the city."
I looked at him sharply. The Accord hadn't been called in sixty years. The last one nearly ended in a massacre.
"Why would I do that?"
"Because the leaders of the northern packs are desperate, and desperate wolves can be persuaded to sign a great many things." His smile was gentle. "And because the Matriarch of the Hollow, hosting, would gain very considerable influence."
It was a trap. Of course it was. I could smell the trap from here.
But it was also true. If I hosted the Accord, I'd have every pack leader in my debt. The witches would be safe from the wolves for a generation. The Hollow would grow.
"What do you get out of it?" I asked.
"Me?" Aurelian pressed a cold hand to his chest, as if wounded. "I only wish to see my investment thrive."
I didn't believe a word. But I didn't say no either.
After he left, I stood alone for a long time with the moonlight on my hands. Something prickled under my skin, faint and strange. It was not the oath. It was lower than that, deeper, like a note struck on a string I hadn't known I had.
I told myself it was the cold.
I went inside and wrote the invitations.
Heyyy, my lovely readers! 🥹💕🫶🏽
Welcome to Bound by Hollow! 🐺🩸🌙
This is my very first novel, and I’m so excited (and a little nervous 😭💗) to share this journey with you!
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